Category: General

A number of you are asking for feedback on the National Prayer Breakfast in Kinshasa, and in any case I wanted to take the chance to ask you to pray for the Congo, so here’s a quick update: The leadership of the NPB are a great bunch, and Congo is at a critical juncture. The President is delaying elections and looks like not being willing to go quietly, having already served his permitted two terms. I was drafted in relatively last minute because the first-choice speaker decided that the security situation was too dicey to come. For me it was […]

I’m writing this on a plane heading to Kenya with friends from the National Prayer Breakfast. One of them is Cris Rwakasisi, who spoke at our Burundian NPB yesterday. I thought I’d share some of his story, and some further thoughts: Cris was Ugandan President Milton Obote’s main man back in the early 1980s. Obote gave him the choice of any post he wanted, and he ended up as Minister of Defense. He was 42-years-old, so (relatively) young, powerful, rich, and arrogant. His caviar lifestyle and attitude alienated the opposition and many within his own party. He got things done, […]

Warning: some of the pictures below are pretty gruesome. Some would say I shouldn’t include them (I have omitted the most graphic one). But actually sometimes it takes the pictures to stir to action, and brave Anesie’s battle is still ongoing. I see part of my very broad role in Burundi as telling these stories to enlist others’ help, and also to show the breadth of work and of the folk involved out here in trying to bring hope, healing and restoration in the nation. Yesterday I got to see Anesie for the first time in over a year. Yesterday […]

I’ve just finished reading a book on the life of Adoniram Judson. What can I say? My logic in risking life and limb in Burundi over the last seventeen years or so has always been the same. Either Jesus truly did die and then rise from the dead, or He didn’t. Either He is the Saviour of the world, or He isn’t. Either He is the only way to God, or He isn’t. If He isn’t, I’m wasting my life, relatively-speaking (although we are helping lift lots of folks out of poverty and suffering). But if He is who He […]

I know some people really struggle to believe the stories I share from our annual summer outreach. Maybe you need to come out and meet these folks for yourself! In any case, in what was a massive and complex logistical operation, last month we sent out 701 volunteers for two weeks, who worked in every single province and in twenty-two different hospitals. This outreach was formally approved by both the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Health (which is amazing considering the current tensions and suspicions in the country because of rebel movements). The hospital authorities were mostly […]

We arrived back again yesterday in Burundi after a summer of speaking at multiple meetings around the UK and also many precious times with family and friends. It’s great to be home. Yes, Burundi truly is home. However, that doesn’t mean all is well here. Far from it. I was shocked to see how much visibly thinner a friend was who just came by to see me. Most people are very, very hungry. Many others are very, very frightened. The future remains very, very uncertain. I stopped in on a friend, and voiced my feelings of joy at being home, […]

We returned two weeks ago in time for Lizzie’s ailing Mum Rosemary’s 80th birthday, during which we went out for a very special celebratory ice-cream. Her condition quickly worsened and after spending most of last week in hospital, she graduated to glory in the early hours of Monday morning. She’d wanted to make it to her other daughter Sarah’s wedding on the 23rd of this month, but in the end it wasn’t to be and she has been released from her substantial pain. We are so grateful to have been in country and now to be able to be with […]

Hi gang! Below are my/our summer plans, just keeping you in the loop in case you want to come along: 21st June – arrive back from Burundi 22nd June – Rosemary’s 80th birthday 25th June – Men’s breakfast at St Luke’s, Wimbledon Park 26th June – 1030am St Paul’s Catholic College, Burgess Hill, then 3 Counties Church Haslemere at 7pm 27th June – ANCC, Kick Off 28th June – KCC youth, Hedge End 30th June – Isle of Wight, 730pm in Newport 1st – Sunday 3rd July – annual mates’ weekend 3rd July – 2 morning services at Sunnyside Berkamstead, […]

Hi folks! I’m not sure what’s going on with the blog, but you were sent one from last February yesterday, and the previous one came through twice. Sorry about that. Trying to work out the glitches. Have a great day! Simon 

10 riders, 3 support crew, 800km, 48,000 feet of climbs in 7 days. Those stats don’t do justice to what was simply an incredible week on what was the fourth annual GLO cycling tour. Due to the insecurity in Burundi, we had to do it in Rwanda instead. I was sad about that, because I wanted to expose the lads to Burundi and her amazing people, but Rwanda’s hills and our chosen route proved a significant step up in challenge. In fact, Geoff, who’s now done the tour in both countries, said this week was twice as hard as back […]

The longer I am involved in work in Burundi, the more strategic I see the role of education is. Education is crucial to seeing Burundi transformed, and sadly the old style of learning by rote as taught in the vast majority of schools (with class sizes sometimes over a hundred) simply cannot produce critical thinkers who can creatively contribute to the economy and society as a whole. In 2008, a kindergarten started across town from us with an intake of 80 little children. It was of such high quality that the parents begged my friends Jesse and Joy Johnson to […]

If you follow our movements closely, you’ll know that we’ve been through some pretty challenging times recently, and sometimes there is more bad than good news. So I wanted to write a little about a friend of mine called Francois, who is as inspiring as it gets. Here are a few stories from his life: He became a follower of Jesus in his teens and he just wouldn’t shut up at school about his newfound faith. He preached all the time – in lunch breaks in the open-air – and lots of staff and students came to listen to him. […]

It was what was written on Francine’s T-shirt that grabbed my attention. It simply couldn’t be more inappropriate, of course, because here she was, languishing with about eight hundred other impoverished displaced people in the most miserable of conditions. Lots of worry, little happiness.  Just over two years ago there was terrible flooding on the outskirts of Bujumbura, during which more than 130 people died. Over four thousand houses disappeared in a few hours, some of them literally without any remaining trace. Francine was one of those caught up in that time, after which she and these other precious folk […]

I’ve asked one of my Burundian soul-mates who is having an amazing impact in the nation to share with you from his perspective some of what we are up to these days. Over to him: “Since the current crisis began in Burundi about a year ago, Simon asked me to head up and coordinate what we decided to call ‘Christian Initiatives for Peace.’ As GLO partners over the last number of years, we have met monthly to encourage and sharpen each other. Simon’s vision for GLO was to create a tight informal relational network of passionate local leaders, all of […]

Below is a fantastic story of perseverance under relentless trial. I’ve lived it alongside Jeremy, with whom I meet weekly for breakfast to talk and encourage each other. I love what he has done, is doing, and will do, alongside his precious family and devoted team at The King’s School. My favorite image of this challenging time was when oral exams were taking place to the sounds of gunfire up the street – at all costs the show must go on! Be stirred and inspired. Jeremy writes:   Why  Bother? Burundi’s now, apparently, the poorest, hungriest and most unhappy country […]

I turned 43-years-old today, which provides a natural chance to look backwards as well as forwards. Birthday lunch en famille at Cafe GourmandAs I review this last year, it feels somewhat schizophrenic.I have a wonderful life in Burundi. It is incredibly challenging, exciting, and fulfilling. Our marriage is strong, the children are thriving, we are all healthy.  Amidst great upheaval, we experienced God’s stunning intervention and faithfulness. As the crisis loomed last April, Josiah’s accidental inhaling of a kernel of popcorn into his lung meant the family left the country because he needed an operation that couldn’t be carried out […]

Burundi has nearly doubled in size since I arrived here in 1999. Clearly, that’s incorrect, but I make that absurd statement to highlight the horrific implications of the undeniable fact that whilst Burundi’s landmass has not changed in the last 17 years, it’s population has indeed nearly doubled. It was 6 million back then, and now it is approximately 10.5 million. That, in a nutshell, is Burundi’s elephant in the room. That has a lot to do with why we are the hungriest country in the world. That is a major reason we are experiencing instability. The average fertility rate […]

Some images don’t require a thousand words. Burundi has the highest malnutrition rate in the world. We were officially the hungriest country even before this crisis kicked in. I was at a bush hospital two weeks ago and heard from the doctor there that the already atrocious situation had spiked even more in recent months. Below, with permission, is a picture that rocks my world – all the more so as a father imagining my children not being able to eat. Taken at the hospital by my friend, this is her well-fed daughter, Alma. She is 4-years-old. Guess how old is […]